Work retreats — get-togethers for colleagues that involve fun activities and team-building exercises as much as actual work — have become quite a bit more popular since the COVID-19 pandemic. And the reasoning make sense: With more and more employee working remotely, it’s important to meet in person when employees are able. A recent survey shows that more than a third of workers think they have their best ideas in person, and 75 percent of millennials think traveling for work is a perk, not a hassle.
The Wasatch Range, where Mount Shavano is located. Photo: Bridget Calip/Shutterstock
Worst Company Retreat Ever? Hiker Gets Abandoned on a Work Outing.
But for one man in Colorado, his coworkers clearly need to focus a bit more on working together as a team. Because during a company outing on Friday, August 23, they left him behind on a trail, forcing him to spend the night alone in the wilderness during a heavy storm.
According to Colorado’s Chaffee County South Search and Rescue, Steve Stephanides was reported missing on Mount Shavano, a 14’er near Salida, Colorado. He was one of 15 people hiking as part of a Beazley Insurance team-building hike to raise money for charity. Half the group went to the summit, and half the group turning around before making the final push. Stephanides, age 46, was part of the first group and had done the hike at least once before, ABC News reports, but he became disoriented and slowed on a boulder field on the descent. Though he informed his coworkers, texting them a pin of his location, they didn’t wait for him. Instead, they told him to find his way back to the trail. Hours later, he repeated the process when he still hadn’t found the trail.
According to Chaffee County Search and Rescue, he then lost service and was unable to make it down the hill — something that “might cause some awkward encounters at the office in the coming days and weeks.”
The search and rescue team was called after dark, and spent the entirety of the rainy, windy, and stormy night searching for the man with helicopters and drones. He still hadn’t been found by midmorning Saturday, at which point additional search and rescue team were activated.
Around noon on Saturday, the missing man regained cell service and called 911, allowing rescue teams to quickly find him. He had fallen more than 20 times on the steep descent, stating that he was disoriented — something that can easily happen on high summits with risks of altitude sickness. Using ropes and lowered emergency personnel, rescuers were able to reach the man, who was sent to a local hospital. The search team’s Facebook post advised that the situation could have been much worse if they hadn’t been able to find him, which was only possible as he fortuitously regained cell service.
No word yet on Stephanides condition, or the percent raise he plans to ask for during his next annual review. 